Information
- 170,500
- 2000/Toyota/Celica (GT)
- Automatic
Hi, so im having this rough idle when im on drive or reverse, my engine starts to shake a little and my check engine light starts to blink while it starts to overheat. This only happens when I reach higher rpms or when I drive for about 10 minutes. What should I do? I dont have a reader and this car wont make it to a shop before it starts to overheat.
I dont have a reader
You need one to work on OBD2-equipped cars. Otherwise you're working in the dark with no real idea of what's going on. Even inexpensive scan tools these days can give you access to live and freeze-frame data as well as active and pending codes.
It sounds like you are having severe misfires causing engine shaking and triggering the flashing check engine light. (Flashing CEL light, by the way, means stop driving immediately to prevent major damage.)
Given the combination of symptoms you might want to first check for a blown head gasket.
Video of Scotty showing how to test for a blown head gasket.
Also keep in mind the test in that video only checks for combustion gases getting into the cooling system, which is very common, but there are other ways a head gasket can fail that will not be detected with that method.
For example if the head gasket fails between two cylinders, particularly on an engine with siamesed cylinders that have no coolant passages between them, there would be no combustion gases found in the coolant. The failed gasket would show up as low compression in two adjacent cylinders.